Alameda Marsh

William Seltzer Rice

William Seltzer Rice moved to Alameda, California near Oakland in 1910 to teach high school art, as well as teaching at the California School of Arts and Crafts. Rice depicts the marshes of Alameda at sunset. He "painted" the ink onto the blocks with a brush, the brushstrokes creating a sweeping sensation to the composition.

Though a small image, Rice expands the format by adding elements into the composition from the edges, a blue cloud, background hills, fragmented land masses in the foreground, all topped off with two brilliant orange clouds that focus the viewer's eye to the horizon. Individual impressions of this image will vary in color.

Alameda is located west of Oakland, in northern California, off San Francisco Bay. The island of Alameda was originally a peninsula connected to Oakland. Much of the land was low-lying and marshy, but on the higher ground the peninsula was home to one of the largest coastal oak forests in the world. Alameda in Spanish means "grove of poplar trees" or "tree-lined avenue."